GCTC & CCLA present Walking on Water
Fundraising Gala Performances to Benefit...
- The Catherine Helen MacLean Memorial Fund
- The Great Canadian Theatre Company
- Mothers Against Drunk Driving
March 7th, 8th, 9th, 2002
at the Great Canadian Theatre Company
910 Gladstone Avenue (at Preston)
Ottawa, Ontario
Performances at 7:30 p.m.
Followed by Catered Gala Reception with the Cast
and Celebrity Guests at Trattoria Caffe Italia
SOPRA (Preston & Gladstone)
The "Lawyer Play" Idea
In 1999, Ottawa's legal and professional theatre communities came together to present Twelve Angry Jurors, by Reginald Rose, as a fundraising event to benefit charities of the cast of lawyers' choice as well as the Great Canadian Theatre Company. Directed by GCTC's then-artistic director, Micheline Chevrier, a host of lawyers and judges performed the play at the Museum of Nature, followed by gala receptions.
In April 2001, the second "lawyer play", Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution was directed by GCTC's new artistic director, Lorne Pardy, bringing more lawyers, judges and celebrity 'jurors' drawn from the worlds of the law, politics and entertainment into the performance space of the Great Canadian Theatre Company (followed by gala receptions at St. Anthony's Soccer Club around the corner), raising over $40,000 for GCTC, REACH and Research for Parkinson's Disease.
Now, for the 2002 production, the "lawyer play" takes another leap forward, producing a contemporary Canadian Play, performed at GCTC with the professional resources of the company, by a new team of lawyers and again featuring 'celebrity' performers.
The Play
Walking on Water was first produced in 2000, and comes from the pen of Dave Carley, a Peterborough, Ontario, native whose plays have been performed in theatres across Canada and on the CBC radio network.
In the style of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, a company of actors gathers together on a bare stage to tell the story of a Canadian city, Ashburnham, its inhabitants, a series of unexplained murders and the effect on thirteen lives of a "Finders Keepers" case.
Based on the real 1950s Peterborough case of Grafstein vs. Holme and Freeman (presided over by Judge J. Aylen and presented by one Thomas Carley, Q.C.), the inhabitants of 'Ashburnham' - a newspaper editor and a reporter, a chief of police, a mortician, a storeowner, a minister, a petty thief, their wives and mistresses - are all implicated in a series of slayings centred around the discovery of a cash box containing $40,000, the proceeds of a long-running illicit poker game. Who killed the chauffeur who ran the game? And why? Why is everyone in the play, in fact, already dead?
The Production Team
Once again, the "lawyer play" team brings together lawyers young and old(er) from Ottawa firms large and small to work with the theatre professionals of the Great Canadian Theatre Company.
Walking on Water is directed by Charles McFarland, veteran of 40 professional theatre productions in Canada, the General Manager of GCTC and the director of the highly acclaimed The Faraway Nearby, GCTC's 2001 production of John Murrell's play about the last years of Georgia O'Keeffe. The Design Team includes Art Penson (set designer of GCTC's Bea's Niece and the NAC's Twelfth Night - now playing), costume designer Sue Fijalkowska, lighting designer Shane Learmonth and Stage Manager Shainna Laviolette.
The Beneficiaries
The co-beneficiaries of the 2002 "Lawyer Play" are the Great Canadian Theatre Company and the Catherine Helen MacLean Memorial Fund.
The Great Canadian Theatre Company has, for 27 seasons, provided Ottawa with its hub for contemporary theatre, developing new Canadian plays, often from the pens of local writers (Jason Sherman's adaptation of Phil Jenkins' novel, An Acre of Time, for instance, having just been nominated for the 2001 Governor General's award. In addition, GCTC in its six-play season presents both the best of Canadian work from around the country and, from time to time, showcases the best contemporary international works (such as this season's upcoming presentation of Art) which throws our own stories into relief.
On January 27th, 2001, while walking with a friend along a neighbourhood sidewalk, Catherine MacLean was struck and killed by a vehicle driven by a Russian diplomat. To honour Catherine's legacy of personal and professional achievement, her family, friends and colleagues have established the Catherine Helen MacLean Memorial Fund at the University of Ottawa, to generate sufficient funds to support needs-based scholarships in the Faculty of Law, special lecture series and other endeavours. Support of the Catherine Helen MacLean Memorial Fund commemorates her life and vision of legal practice and education, and ensures that her name remains visible in perpetuity.
In addition to the two major co-beneficiaries, the cast of Walking on Waterwould also like to donate from the proceeds of this fundraising endeavour a sum of monies to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, in keeping with the larger issues surrounding the tragedy which befell Catherine MacLean.
How You Can Help - Buy Tickets
Immediately available are $100 Gift Certificates, offering the perfect (tax-deductible) Christmas Gift. Each certificate is redeemable at the GCTC Box Office after January 7th, 2002, for One Event Ticket, consisting of one performance ticket for either Thursday, Friday or Saturday March 7th, 8th or 9th, 2002, admission to the post-performance Gala Reception at Trattoria Caffe Italia's new banquet hall, "Sopra" (above the Trattoria) and a tax-deductible donation receipt for $65. This receipt can of course be issued for 2001 if the Gift Certificate is purchased before December 31st. The GCTC Box Office will be able to process VISA and MasterCard orders up to December 21st; thereafter cheques dated before December 31st and cash only can be accepted, if a 2001 tax-receipt is desired.
How You Can Help - Sell Tickets and Volunteer
Within the legal community, cast and event committee members are undertaking to solicit ticket purchases within their own firms and organizations. The event committee is also seeking individuals within all other law firms and the community-at-large to act as "ambassadors" or marketers for the GCTC/ CCLA Lawyer Play, to promote ticket sales and other forms of support: corporate sponsorship. Anyone interested in joining the team should either contact the cast member who approached them or get in touch directly with the event committee chair, GCTC Board Member Sandy Crawley: e-mail scrawley_ca@yahoo.com or phone (613) 842-9547.
